1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a receiving and conditioning apparatus for a molded article. Particularly, but not exclusively, the present invention relates to an improved cooling tube for receiving and conditioning a thermoplastic preform.
2. Background Information
The cooling tube of the present invention may be used in conjunction with a typical injection molding system 70, as shown in FIG. 1. The injection molding system 70 comprises an injection unit 72, a mold clamp unit 74, and a molded article handling and conditioning system 86. Alternatively, the injection molding system 70 could be an INDEX, a registered trademark of Husky Injection Molding Systems Limited, system as is generally described in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,143,225 and co-pending application Ser. No. 10/351,596, or an injection stretch blow molding system such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,334,768.
The injection unit 72 provides, in use, a controlled flow of pressurized molten plastic into the closed and clamped injection mold 78 and 80 in a known manner. Typically, the injection unit 72 includes a barrel assembly 82, operable such that plastic resin entering the barrel assembly at the feed throat (not shown) is heated and pressurized by a rotating screw (not shown), with supplemental heat provided by barrel heaters (not shown). The melt is thereafter injected through a nozzle (not shown) into an adjacent injection mold 78 and 80 by reciprocation of the screw. The screw is rotated and typically reciprocated by a screw drive 84.
The clamp unit 74 provides, in use, a means to operate the injection mold between an open, closed and clamped position. The clamp unit includes a fixed platen 86 with a first mold half 78 mounted thereon and a movable platen 88 with the second mold half 80 mounted thereon. The moving platen 88 is operable to move the second mold half 80 between the mold open, mold closed and clamped positions by means of stroke cylinders (not shown) or the like. A mold clamping force required during injection is provided by a clamping means that includes tie bars 90 and a clamping mechanism 92 which generates a mold clamp force in a known manner. The first mold half 78 typically includes a runner system (not shown), such as a hot runner as commonly known, operable to distribute a flow of resin material received from the injection unit 72 to each of the mold cavities 94 and 95 defined between the mold halves 78 and 80 respectively.
The preform handling and conditioning system 76 includes a robot 96 that carries an end-of-arm tool 97. The end-of-arm tool 97 typically includes a carrier plate 98 with a set of cooling tubes 10 configured in an array thereon, as for example described in U.S. Pat. RE 33,237, for handling and conditioning of the molded preforms 5. The cooling tubes 10 are preferably connected through the carrier plate 98 and robot 96 to a suction source 99 and to a cooling source 100, for purposes to be described hereinafter.
A typical preform 5, as shown in FIG. 2, includes, not exclusively, a neck portion 6 at a first end, a end portion 8 at the opposite closed end and a body portion 7 between the neck portion 6 and the end portion 8. The preform 5 typically includes a gate vestige 9 on the end portion 8. The end portion 8 is also commonly known as the gate area. The end portion 8 is commonly hemispherical in shape, although it may be any shape, including a substantially flat bottom. Preforms 5 are an intermediate product that are subsequently blow molded into a packaging article, typically a bottle.
The construction and operation of cooling tubes is very well known, there being a myriad of alternative constructions. For example, the cooling tube may be as described in commonly assigned co-pending application Ser. No. 10/321,940 that comprises an extruded cylindrically shaped tube with an inner mating surface for receiving a preform and a cooling means provided by cooling channels arranged within the wall of a tube body. It is however generally possible to classify the known cooling tubes into one of two groups that are divided on the basis of whether or not the cooling tube provides an intimate fit to the preform retained therein. Some of the limitations associated with these cooling tubes relate to the imparting of unwanted preform quality problems such as ovality and gate stretching.
Preform ovality relates to the deformation of the preform body portion 7 wherein the body portion 7 assumes an irregular (generally oval) shape. The ovality occurs whenever the preform body portion 7 loses intimate contact with the inner mating surface of the cooling tube 10, with a resulting loss in cooling efficiency, and when the preform body portion 7 retains enough heat to cause its surface temperature to increase in excess of the thermoplastic glass transition temperature. As a result of the skin reheating effect, and the softened preform 5 thereafter deforms due to uneven shrinkage. The skin reheating effect is a direct result of the poor thermal conductivity of typical preform thermoplastic polymers, such as polyethyleneterephthalate (PET), and the slow migration of heat from the relatively hot interior of a preform towards its surface.
As the name implies, gate stretching relates to unwanted stretching of the end portion 8 of the preform. Gate stretching typically occurs whenever the surface of the preform end portion 8 has had an opportunity to reheat past the thermoplastic glass transition temperature, as a result of the skin reheating effect, and is deformed under the applied suction from the cooling tube suction means.
The construction and operation of an intimate fit cooling tube is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,729,732. The cooling tube comprises a cooled hollow tube and a mechanism for drawing the preform 5 progressively into the cooling tube as the preform 5 cools. The intimate fit aspect of the cooling tube describes the interference that occurs between the outer body shape 6 and 8 of the just-molded, and therefore hot, preform and a substantially correspondingly shaped but slightly inwardly offset inner mating or contact surface provided by the inner wall of the cooling tube such that the just-molded preform cannot immediately fit completely therein. The intimate fit aspect characterized another way provides that the inner mating surface of the cooling tube includes an applied shrinkage relative to the actual molding shape of the molding cavity. In use, the cooled cooling tube receives the just-molded preform into a first position wherein the preform body is in contact with the cooling tube mating surface but where a gap exists between the domed end-portion 8 of the preform and the correspondingly-shaped end surface of the cooling tube inner mating surface. As the preform begins both to cool and shrink, the preform consequently slides further along the inner mating surface of (and further into) the tube until the preform is completely seated in the cooling tube and the end portion 8 is in contact with the correspondingly shaped end surface of the cooling tube.
Accordingly, the advantage provided by an intimate fit cooling tube is relatively efficient and uniform preform body portion 7 cooling with fewer preform quality problems and reduced molding cycle time (i.e. reduced in-mold cooling requirement).
A challenge with the intimate fit cooling tube is the avoidance of gate stretching. Therefore, the establishment of the offset of the cooling tube inner mating surface is critical. That is, the selection of an offset that maintains preform body portion 7 in contact with the inner surface over the longest possible interval while at the same time ensuring that the end portion 8 contacts the corresponding end surface of the cooling tube before the end portion 8 has the opportunity to reheat and deform under suction. In most cases, the correct size has never been established for given cycle time and preforms experience either some ovality problem or some gate stretching or some of both at an aggressive cycle time.
The remaining group of cooling tubes share the common trait that the shape and size of their inner mating surface either match or are larger than the corresponding outer shape of the corresponding and just-molded preform whereby an intimate fit cannot be provided. Such cooling tubes allow the preform to be transferred almost immediately to its final seated position, and therefore do not experience gate stretching. However, the preform body portion 7 will have only limited point contact with the inner mating surface, a condition that is exacerbated with continued cooling and shrinkage, and therefore there is relatively limited and non-uniform cooling that induces preform ovality.
It is desired to reduce the length of time it takes a preform to completely seat in the cooling tube for a given offset, and thereby minimize gate stretching. It is also desired to provide more flexibility in the selection of the offset of the cooling tube inner mating surface without consideration for the variations in preform 5 shape that inevitably occur as a function of the process parameters (e.g. changes in in-mold cooling time, packing, etc). It is further desired to provide for increasing the amount of offset that is applied to the inner mating surface of the cooling tube to further reduce preform ovality, while also avoiding gate stretching.
The use of surface treatments, such as with tetrafluoroethylene (TFE) polymer coatings to increase lubricity, applied to a metallic article is well known. A commonly recognized TFE polymer is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sold under the trademark TEFLON and manufactured by E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Incorporated. PTFE coatings may be loosely applied to the surface of an article, but for lasting performance the PTFE is typically fused with the article substrate material. The latter process of fusing PTFE and similar polymers to a substrate material is generally known. A commonly cited coating that has found use on blow molds, tire molds, and many other Aluminum articles goes by the trademark of TUFRAM, marketed by General Magnaplate Corporation. The process for fusing PTFE polymer coating to an Aluminum mold substrate is generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,381, and includes the steps of converting, to a predetermined depth, an aluminium mold surface to aluminum oxide that is then impregnated with PTFE particles generally under one micron in size. The process causes the aluminum crystals at the surface to expand forming porous hydroscopic crystals that permanently interlock with the PTFE particles to form a continuous lubricating polymer surface.
Further, there are many other well-known self-lubricating materials that have use as surface treatments for Aluminum or with other substrate materials (ferrous and non-ferrous) for the common purpose of increasing lubricity. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,325,732 and 6,447,704 further describe the methods for surface treating, and include a listing of many of the available self-lubricating materials as partially reproduced in Table 1. As described therein common plastic lubricants, otherwise known as polymeric coatings, include perhaloolefine, polyethylethylketone, homopolymers and copolymers of tetrachlorethylene, flouranated ethylene propylene, perfluoro alkoxyethylene, acrylics, vinylidene fluorides and amides, all of which may be applied by conventional coating and impregnation techniques. Further varieties of self-lubricating compounds include polymer composites and intercalated solid materials.
TABLE 1LECTROFLUORGeneral Magnaplate Corporation, Linden, N.J.HARDLUBEPioneer-Norelkote of Green Bay, Wis.MAGNAPLATEGeneral Magnaplate Corporation, Linden, N.J.NEDOXGeneral Magnaplate Corporation, Linden, N.J.PEEKVictrex USA Inc. of West Chester, Pa.
A surface to be treated with TUFRAM or other such self-lubricating material may or may not need to be anodized prior to application of the coating, as the required porous surface may be inherent in the metal, otherwise such a surface may be provided by anodizing as is commonly known. Anodizing causes the formation of a shallow oxide layer on the surface of the article that has a wear-resistant, porous structure suitable for impregnating with a self-lubricating compound, as described hereinabove.
Alternatively, the wear-resistant, porous surface layer may be formed by applying an electrolytic layer of nickel or chromium. Chromium is particularly useful in this regard because of its hardness. Alternatively, a porous zinc phosphate layer may be bonded to the metal surface.
Alternatively, the wear-resistant, porous surface layer may also be provided by appropriate selection of metals from which to form the article. For example, sintered powdered metals having about 1% to 35% porosity are well known and can be utilized to provide a porous surface.
From the known methods for surface treating, it is noted that the manner in which the coating of the self-lubricating compound is applied may vary widely, but commonly ensure that the self-lubricating compound impregnates or extends into the pores of the porous surface layer. For example, the coating may be sprayed onto the surface layer, applied with a brush or roller, or the article may be immersed in a tank or vat of the self-lubricating compound. After application of the self-lubricating coating, the coated article should be allowed to stand for a length of time sufficient to dry or set the coating within the pores of the porous surface layer of the article. Baking at a moderate temperature, such as 90-150° Celsius for at least about one hour then fixes the coating.
Further, the known methods for surface treating may further include the step of contacting the impregnated surface with a shapable mixture of the self-lubricating compound, and hardening the resulting composite material.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,198,176 provides an example of a forming tube for the production of a heat-set thermoplastic container by a plug forming method. The mold forming tube includes a thin sleeve of TEFLON that reduces the incidence of sticking of the thermoplastic to the bottom side wall portions of the forming tube.
Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,461,556 provides an example of a cooling pin for cooling the interior of just-molded preforms. The cooling pin comprises a central pin structure terminating in a head portion, a fluid channel passing through the central pin structure and terminating in an outlet in the head portion, and a plurality of fins positioned along the central pin structure that function to keep the cooling fluid in close proximity to the interior surface of the molded article. The fins may be formed from TEFLON.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,380,526 provides an example of a blow mold cavity for non-round bottles with a coating of heat insulative material, such as TEFLON, that improves slippage of the material on the coated surface and retards excessive heat transfer from the plastic thereby preventing premature setting of the material.
Given the foregoing, it is desired to improve the function of the intimate fit cooling tube to improve the conditioning of a preform retained therein while also substantially reducing, if not eliminating preform ovality and gate stretching. In particular, it is desired to reduce the length of time it takes a preform 5 to completely seat in a cooling tube for a given offset.